Gabe Newell on piracy and Steam’s success in Russia

We’ve already covered Valve co-founder Gabe Newell’s thoughts on Team Fortress 2’s lucrative decision to go free-to-play, but during the same talk Newell also spoke a little bit about the highly lucrative Russian games market. It seems that the country – which is notorious for high levels of piracy – is actually something of a nest (headcrab) egg for Valve.

Steam is the Amazon of the digital market place. The lesson here is that you have to go all out. There must be a platform for community and customer reviews, and the sales must be frequent and compelling.

You can not do this when you have one foot in both retail and digital space because their interests will collide. This is a lesson learned by Barnes and Noble and Blockbuster. Next up to get schooled, Origin.